Isn't WordPress supposed to be easy?

The most common issues I see with WordPress sites, and how I would assist.

1. Plugins are wrecking my head... and my site!

Plugins are amazing things, designed and developed to help add functionality to your site. Very often, however, they're not actually designed for Joe-Soap. First you have to keep them constantly updated. Then there's so many that do the same thing so you never know which one to choose. Then there's amazing plugins that are no longer supported for your version of WordPress... Madness!

You definiteily need a bit of technical know-how to properly and safely configure them at the start, and then keep them working safely thereinafter. An example of this is WooCommerce, the best free plugin available for turning your site into an online store/E-Commerce platform. It's a brilliant, free, stable and secure app. But it's by no means user-friendly. You have to know your way around the app, and know what integrations to download in order to make your site work efficiently and safely. You're dealing with customers' credit cards, after all!

Some plugins, like Elementor, then, promise to revolutionize the way you design your front-end, but instead slow your site down, introduce bugs, and doesn't work well with other plugins. Personally, I hate it and never use it on my clients' websites or indeed on my own. It's incredibly buggy, it's bloated - meaning it adds A LOAD of extra code to your site, most that is never even used. At the end of the day, you've to remember that plugins, especially those that offer Premium versions/upgrades, are a business, whos goal is to make money. Oftentimes, there's nothing Elementor can do that WordPress (in 2026) can't. Elementor just has really good marketing and branding behind it. It looks to offer sleek design components and flashy animations, but what good is your site if it's not loading for people?

My take #1: The first thing I'd ask is... do you even need WordPress at all?

If all you have is a brochure site, only to provide information to the public, show off some products, etc. and aren't actually selling anything online, you probably don't need WordPress at all. I've built sites for plumbers, restaurants, dentists, and massage therapists without touching WordPress. The sites are instantly more secure (meaning less hackers!), cost less for me to run on my server, thus cost less to you, and are just less code to maintain. The tech I use for small/brochure sites are React, Django, and Flask (if you're curious!)

Click here to see a non-WordPress site I built for Maurice Boddy... The best plumber in the West 😉

And here to see the fresh and delicious site for Chiya - Dublin's best döner kebab 💚. Zero WordPress was involved, and boy is the site pretty!

My take #2: If you do need WordPress, either because you've got a lot of content or you're running an e-commerce store, keep plugins to a minimum.

It's the single way to keep codebase small and tight, keep your site more secure, eliminate vulnerabilities, eliminate the need for plugin updates, and keep incompatibilties to a minimum.

Often you'll find you need special functionality on a site, like a booking form, for example. To get that working, you'd need WPMail to deliver the contact enquiries, WP Forms or Gravity Forms, etc. to build a form, a Stripe integration plugin to handle payments, and a separate plugin to handle calendars! Four plugins is an insane amount of code to install on your site for ONE booking form. This is an example of when it would be best to contact a professional like me, who more than likely already has a custom plugin developed and ready to install, without any 3rd party dependencies!

2. I've been hacked, and have no idea what to do.

Having your site hacked is one of the most stressful problems you can face as someone with no technical knowledge. Sure, AI can help guide you on what to do, but time is of the essence when you're dealing with malicious actors. And ChatGPT only gets you so far before you're forced to top-up your credits!

The first thing I would do is ask yourself - "Do I even know where my code is stored?" Now, if that's not a question you can even begin to answer, I'm afraid to say you're probably not going to be able to solve this by yourself!

Code is normally stored on a server - a Digital Ocean droplet, a Pantheon instance, a Cloudways instance, etc. The first thing I'd do in the event of a hack is shut down that server to secure the site, and boot up a simple, safe, and secured website on another server, displaying a cut-down version of your site, maybe informing your customers that you're experiencing some technical difficulties. This gives us time to regroup, figure out the hack and where to go from there!

My website is not doing it's job. It's not increasing my customer numbers or sales. No one is seeing it!

This is the reality for a lot of websites out there. You've seemingly done all you can to build a fast, modern, attractive and useful site. But no one is even seeing it!

Sometimes this is less of a Web Development/SEO problem, and more of a Digital Marketing issue. Have you created yourself Business Profiles online? Have you included your Socials? Have you kept the site up-to-date with fresh, quality content?

Sometimes, however, it is a Web Dev issue. Poor SEO/poor quality content, poor accessibility (for people with visual impairments, for exameple), a slow site, an unsecure site, a lack of UX/UI considerations (here meaning how users would use your site). All of this stuff impacts your site's digital reputation.

Very important to note is does your site and everything in it actually function correctly? Here I'm talking about broken Google Maps, or submission forms that don't actually send you anything. Or an image gallery that doesn't swipe on mobile. There are no many common functionality issues I see time and time again. Very often, the site owner doesn't even know about them. This is where automated website monitoring comes in handy, but that's a conversation for a different day...

The bottom line is: Why would Google reward you by promoting your site if you're not doing things the correct way, meaning offering users an easy and helpful way to browse your site, why would a search engine like Google reward you with good rankings? Always keep that in mind when working on your site. You won't rank highly unless you're proving to Google or Bing or whoever else, that your site offers meaningful and relevant/up-to-date content!